Critics of voter ID and other laws cracking down on voter fraud claim they’re unnecessary because fraud is nonexistent. For instance, Brennan Center attorneys Michael Waldman and Justin Levitt claimed last year: “A person casting two votes risks jail time and a fine for minimal gain. Proven voter fraud, statistically, happens about as often as death by lightning strike.”

Well, lightning is suddenly all over Cincinnati, Ohio. The Hamilton County Board of Elections is investigating 19 possible cases of alleged voter fraud that occurred when Ohio was a focal point of the 2012 presidential election. A total of 19 voters and nine witnesses are part of the probe.

Democrat Melowese Richardson has been an official poll worker for the last quarter century and registered thousands of people to vote last year. She candidly admitted to Cincinnati’s Channel 9 this week that she voted twice in the last election.

This is how Channel 9′s website summarized the case:

Quote:

According to county documents, Richardson’s absentee ballot was accepted on Nov. 1, 2012 along with her signature. On Nov. 11, she told an official she also voted at a precinct because she was afraid her absentee ballot would not be counted in time.

“There’s absolutely no intent on my part to commit voter fraud,” said Richardson. . . .

The board’s documents also state that Richardson was allegedly disruptive and hid things from other poll workers on Election Day after another female worker reported she was intimidated by Richardson. . . .

During the investigation it was also discovered that her granddaughter, India Richardson, who was a first time voter in the 2012 election, cast two ballots in November.

Richardson insists she has done nothing wrong and promises to contest the charges: “I’ll fight it for Mr. Obama and for Mr. Obama’s right to sit as president of the United States.”

But, of course, as you know there is no voter fraud. Pay no attention to that lightning coming out of Ohio.

Whoa, 19 alleged cases, you guys better have a re-count after the inquiry, that could change everything! Oddly enough, I can't seem to remember people claiming that id fraud never happened, rather than the number of actual cases was insignificant, and further that the laws seemed to be tailor-made to preclude people without id cards or passports, which by an amazing coincidence are more likely to vote Democrats, from voting. So yeah, strawman, man.
(Personally though I can't see any harm in voter id laws, as long as everybody already has the means to identify themselves.)

I'd also offer that if it isn't too unwieldy or costly to prevent known methods of fraud, then it should probably be done, regardless of lies, damn lies, or statistics._________________It takes a little while to get the facts. You still don't know the facts.

What should be happening now is that all those fucks who whined that some people don't have IDs should be figuring out how to use the next two years to somehow enable them to get off their dead asses and get IDs.

But it won't happen, because it's the favorite excuse of Democrats every election. "We can't do it right like other countries because that would exclude voters." Yeah, it excludes illegal voters.

For all of the effort the democrat party puts into registering voters and driving them to the polls, you'd think actually helping them get some ID would be easy enough. But the democrats don't actually care about helping those people, what they want is power, and fraudulent elections help them gain power._________________People Of Love

It's consequentialist ethics: "the ends justify the means". The main problem with that philosophy is that man is not omniscient or omnipotent and, more often than not, fails to achieve the desired end while concurrently causing a host of undesirable, unintended consequences.

Anyone who believes "the ends justify the means" should be marched around and shown a few of the many mass graves created by similarly-thinking people.

What should be happening now is that all those fucks who whined that some people don't have IDs should be figuring out how to use the next two years to somehow enable them to get off their dead asses and get IDs.

There's an easy solution. For all the 150 year olds who can't prove their identity, grandfather them in. Then everyone else who isn't can get an ID. Implement in 5 years, with the next election being a warning that they'll need an ID the next election. Easy, fair, problem solved._________________It takes a little while to get the facts. You still don't know the facts.

But what about the Hamilton County investigation that has Fund so excited? A whole 19 cases of possible voter fraud! Fund doesn't bother to mention that there were 421,997 ballots cast in Hamilton County in 2012. So even if every single one of those 19 cases involved the fraudulent casting of a ballot, they would represent just 0.0045 percent of the total. That's pretty rare -- which is exactly the point Waldman and Levitt made.

Look more closely at the Hamilton County investigation, and things look even worse for the voter ID crusade. Ohio law currently requires voters who show up at polling places on Election Day to present some form of identification (driver's license, utility bill, pay stub, etc.) to cast a regular ballot. If they don't have an acceptable form of ID, they may cast a provisional ballot. Voter ID proponents like Fund insist that government-issued photo IDs must be required to vote in person. Of the 19 voters who are under investigation in Hamilton County, most voted early via absentee ballot and then went to cast provisional ballots at their polling place on Election Day. In each of those cases, the provisional ballot was rejected. So even if they were attempting to knowingly and fraudulently double vote, the system was already in place to catch them, and their second votes didn't count.

In fact, a review of the investigation indicates there were only two instances of ballots being cast in person under the same name at two different locations. One woman voted absentee in-person at the Board of Elections office, and says someone else cast a ballot using her name on Election Day. Another woman apparently cast a provisional ballot at her current precinct polling location, and then cast another ballot in her old precinct. That's two votes out of nearly 422,000 cast.

So Fund might think that the Hamilton County investigation proves his point that voter fraud is a real problem, but in reality it demonstrates how extraordinarily difficult and, consequently, rare actual voter fraud is.

But what about the Hamilton County investigation that has Fund so excited? A whole 19 cases of possible voter fraud! Fund doesn't bother to mention that there were 421,997 ballots cast in Hamilton County in 2012. So even if every single one of those 19 cases involved the fraudulent casting of a ballot, they would represent just 0.0045 percent of the total. That's pretty rare -- which is exactly the point Waldman and Levitt made.

Look more closely at the Hamilton County investigation, and things look even worse for the voter ID crusade. Ohio law currently requires voters who show up at polling places on Election Day to present some form of identification (driver's license, utility bill, pay stub, etc.) to cast a regular ballot. If they don't have an acceptable form of ID, they may cast a provisional ballot. Voter ID proponents like Fund insist that government-issued photo IDs must be required to vote in person. Of the 19 voters who are under investigation in Hamilton County, most voted early via absentee ballot and then went to cast provisional ballots at their polling place on Election Day. In each of those cases, the provisional ballot was rejected. So even if they were attempting to knowingly and fraudulently double vote, the system was already in place to catch them, and their second votes didn't count.

In fact, a review of the investigation indicates there were only two instances of ballots being cast in person under the same name at two different locations. One woman voted absentee in-person at the Board of Elections office, and says someone else cast a ballot using her name on Election Day. Another woman apparently cast a provisional ballot at her current precinct polling location, and then cast another ballot in her old precinct. That's two votes out of nearly 422,000 cast.

So Fund might think that the Hamilton County investigation proves his point that voter fraud is a real problem, but in reality it demonstrates how extraordinarily difficult and, consequently, rare actual voter fraud is.

If you were saying the article you are quoting here is ridiculous, then I agree wholeheartedly. The glaring logical flaw is that he claims these findings demonstrate the rarity of voter fraud, but they don't do that at all. These findings are not the result of an exhaustive analysis of all the ballots and voters in that county; they are a handful of cases that happened to fall into the lap of the authorities.

His whole point is a strawman. Nobody claimed these 19 cases are were the only incidence of voter fraud in the county, so it is exceedingly irrational to conclude that this demonstrates "rarity".

Quote:

So even if every single one of those 19 cases involved the fraudulent casting of a ballot, they would represent just 0.0045 percent of the total. That's pretty rare

This is the point that pjp was sarcastically making. He made it in more concise form, but you dismissed it as "meaningless" because he can't claim there are more. That is also illogical. The claim that there are more is far, far more likely to be true than the claim (here in this article, which you apparently support) that these are the only ones.

I would agree that any assertion that voter fraud is rampant is "meaningless" without quantifiable substantiation, but I don't think anybody made that assertion, did they?

Media Matters? A Clintonista, democrat partisan website that is famous for its lack of truth? I really expect more from you, D.

Dmitchell, please use a reliable, unbiased, non-partisan source, such as National Review, next time you post. If Chopinzee can stick to these rules, I don't see why you cant.

National Review is conservative, but they are truthful. The same cannot be said about media matters.

I have to agree. Media Matters is practically an arm of the Democratic Party, and I am not exaggerating. That kind of phrase gets flung around a lot about partisan organizations which would like to be perceived as objective, but Media Matters actually participates in regular meetings with the Democratic Party leadership.

The aren't the counterpart of National Review; they're more like the counterpart of Pajama Media. In fact, Andrew Breitbart and the head of Media Matters (don't recall his name) had a running feud going.

To be fair though, Muso started this whole discussion off with a strawman. Who said that voter fraud never exists (or doesn't exist). I think people have said it's not a problem, and I also think finding 19 cases doesn't necessarily indicate otherwise. dmitchell's point about sample size and actual analysis would apply to this -- if you're claiming it is a problem, then that must be backed up a little more rigorously. Claiming that this disproves some strawman that there's no such thing as voter fraud only goes so far.

If you were saying the article you are quoting here is ridiculous, then I agree wholeheartedly. The glaring logical flaw is that he claims these findings demonstrate the rarity of voter fraud, but they don't do that at all. These findings are not the result of an exhaustive analysis of all the ballots and voters in that county; they are a handful of cases that happened to fall into the lap of the authorities.

His whole point is a strawman. Nobody claimed these 19 cases are were the only incidence of voter fraud in the county, so it is exceedingly irrational to conclude that this demonstrates "rarity".

You are right, it does not show that voter fraud is rare. It does show that this story is silly. With respect to the sentence beginning "These findings", I don't know where you got that information.

Quote:

This is the point that pjp was sarcastically making. He made it in more concise form, but you dismissed it as "meaningless" because he can't claim there are more. That is also illogical. The claim that there are more is far, far more likely to be true than the claim (here in this article, which you apparently support) that these are the only ones.

The article did not claim that these are the only ones.

Quote:

I would agree that any assertion that voter fraud is rampant is "meaningless" without quantifiable substantiation, but I don't think anybody made that assertion, did they?

Not explicitly, no. But I think that was the subtext of a number of comments. What pjp said was meaningless because it was totally unsubstantiated. I don't know if he meant to suggest the problem is rampant but he clearly meant to suggest that 19 cases significantly under reports the true number. There is no other reason to say what he did. But I haven't see any concrete evidence to back it up._________________Your argument is invalid.

To be fair though, Muso started this whole discussion off with a strawman.

Wasn't my strawman, but I did use it. And it's not a complete strawman either. The attacks against voter ID have used the idea that fraud actually doesn't exist. Not all of the attacks, but some. So it is, by definition, not a true strawman._________________People Of Love

Media Matters? A Clintonista, democrat partisan website that is famous for its lack of truth? I really expect more from you, D.

Dmitchell, please use a reliable, unbiased, non-partisan source, such as National Review, next time you post. If Chopinzee can stick to these rules, I don't see why you cant.

National Review is conservative, but they are truthful. The same cannot be said about media matters.

I have to agree. Media Matters is practically an arm of the Democratic Party, and I am not exaggerating. That kind of phrase gets flung around a lot about partisan organizations which would like to be perceived as objective, but Media Matters actually participates in regular meetings with the Democratic Party leadership.

The aren't the counterpart of National Review; they're more like the counterpart of Pajama Media. In fact, Andrew Breitbart and the head of Media Matters (don't recall his name) had a running feud going.

There may be a distinction, but it is a strange place to draw the line. To me, trusting only non-political news sources is one thing, but trusting explicitly political publishing organizations is in a whole different class. And for the record, National Review editors participate in regular meetings with the Republican Party leadership.

I don't believe that National Review editors regularly take part in meetings with the Republican Party leadership. I'm not talking about interviews; I'm talking about meetings to coordinate on how Media Matters fits into the Party's political strategy, define targets, tactics, and talking points for Media Matters, and to coordinate and directly provide funding for Media Matters. Media Matters is directly funded by the Democratic Party and a couple of Democrat bigwigs. National Review is funded by its subscribers and loose fundraising.

It's not a strange place to draw the line at all. One is a propaganda outfit recently spawned by the Democratic Party as a purpoted "watchdog" organization, while the other is a legitimate, if somewhat partisan, publication with a long history of journalistic excellence. They are quite different, especially in terms of credibility.

Media Matters is roughly as credible as Pajama Media. National Review is one of the most respected dozen or so political commentary magazines in the country, and is roughly as credible as others with similar standing (such as The Atlantic, or Mother Jones, for example).